We hope you had as nice a Christmas Eve and day as we did......

trained dogs on Christmas Eve day and then went to Monica and Bruce Magnusson's house across the road for "pierogis" a tradition with Monica's family!  We were joined by their friend Al and by Frank and Regina Caldwell who also live across the road!  Delicious and good company!!

Christmas Day we went to Mass at 10 and then to Jan Shaw's for dinner at 6 - Frank and Regina were also there and we had a beautiful ham dinner!

Too many calories but it's only once a year!!!  Finally we watched the movie "Christmas Story" and laughed a lot!!!!

Today was training and it was a good day - we are down to only training 18 dogs because we gave 2 away and one is hurt - Bruce and Monica are kindly providing Vinnie with some laser treatments to his ankle and shoulder - once a day for 5 days - what will they think of next???!!!!

We are patiently awaiting more snow or else it's a possibility that
 the Tahquamenon race will be cancelled - we lost a lot of snow a week ago and have not yet recovered it - so there a icy spots on the race trail - we have been training on our side of the road on the shorter trail because we have less traffic here on this side and it didn't get as "chewed up"!

That's about it for now!

Not too much happening here........

Not enough snow............we took off 2 days because of rain and then it froze and made terrible ridges in the driveway!!  So we got about an inch of snow yesterday and were able to train on our side of the road again today
 - only 8.5 miles but better than nothing!!!  Don't know when snow is predicted again - and of course, we get the weather report for Newberry and that is 1/2 hour south of us so we usually get more snow and colder than that prediction!

Went to Mass tonight and into the "timber charlie's" restaurant to use their wifi -

If I don't get the chance to write again before:

Have a Blessed Christmas and Happy New Year!!!!!!!

Can't believe how fast time goes by!!!!

The Tahquamenon Sled Dog Race meeting on Thursday was good – I mostly sat and visited with Carol during the meeting but Randy enjoys meeting with the people interested in dogsledding – at the end of the meeting Margaret Harvey wanted to know who her “snowplowing fairy” was and we all pointed to Randy – he ahd done her driveway 2 days before so she would be able to get to her house when she arrived.

Friday we trained both teams with the snow machine and skipped the sled for the day – we ran shorter because we are already figuring by looking at the 90 day forecast for Anchorage Alaska that they are going to have a hard time putting on a race – they have rain and high temps forecasted for the time the race would go.  If we don’t go to Alaska that means we will be in Quebec and the longest the race ever is (and frequently is even less than advertised due to conditions….) 16 miles – we are already going over 20 so we may as well start doing some shorter runs so they don’t get bored with the mileage and the trails – so we only went 11 miles on Friday.  

Saturday we got up and started getting ready to travel “downstate” – we did leave right after feeding at 1:30 – stopped for a short visit with our priest, Fr. Joe Fix, in Evart – he has done radiation and is almost finished with his chemo treating lung cancer – he looked pretty good, all things considered but was very tires having just said Mass.  We got home about 8 and found a lovely fire going in the wood stove and a dish of peanutbutter fudge on the counter!!!  Our wonderful neighbor, Dee Krise, had been down and warmed the house for us = when we are gone there is only a space heater going to keep the pipes from freezing in the back room so the rest of the house gets pretty darn cold – depending on the temp outside it takes a couple of hours to get things “unthawed”!

Sunday we were at Spanky’s Pizza in Fremont by 11am – people started straggling in and the buffet opened and by the time all had arrived we had 20!  Presents were opened (Elaina got the award for “most excited acting over a Christmas present” with the 4 dinosaurs she got – almost hysterical with joy!!!!!!)  We had a really nice time visiting and catching up knowing that we won’t see them all again for at least 3 months!!!

Then back in the truck and drove back the 5 and half hours to the “UP cabin” – got home about 9 – 

Monday neither of us felt really great and the trail was too soft to train dogs (if we used it, it would chew it up ….) so we just laid low all day.

Today Randy is out trying to groom/pack the old trails on this side of the road the we used for the first 2 months – there is considerably less snow than there was even Friday so perhaps he will get it packed enough we won’t hurt their feet if we train today – the forecast for Newberry is not looking great………rain and high 30’s for tomorrow but then snow for 3 days after – we are hoping that just being a half hour north and on Lake Superior will make it be colder here and give us more snow- Randy was already talking about going to Quebec (where we found out from the Bellerives has 3 feet of snow!!!) last nite when he first heard about the forecast of rain here!  Can’t argue with “Mother Nature”!!!!!!!

Training went good today – not too bad since Randy had only gone over once just this morning!  There were just a few 1-2 inch soft spots in the trail but snowmachines had been driving over most of it – 11.5 miles – so tomorrow we will run again thinking that it’s going to rain in the afternoon and maybe the next couple days and maybe the trail will go “to pot”!!!!

Another busy week!

Well now we truly know what is wrong with the snow machine……………on Friday with the first team on the way home (about 5  miles….) the engine blew up!!!!!!!!!!!  No question about what’s wrong now……………..  we walked and rode and pushed and then finally made it back and then took out the second team with the other snow machine – it’s smaller and can’t pull the drag as good as the other but I guess that’s what we are stuck with now!

On the weekend we met Mitz and Keyon and the grandkids in Gaylord and had a delightful Christmas exchange with them!!!! 

Monday was training and then and Tuesday I decorated the house for Christmas; including the manger scene I had made last year from Lake Superior rocks and going out and “chopping down a Christmas tree” all by myself using the snow machine to find a tree in the woods!!!!!

 Today (Wednesday) was the big one……….the one you look forward to every year (and for me not in a good way……..)……….the first run with the dogs on the sled!!!!!  I dread it because, invariably, something goes wrong!  And it did!!!!!  The first team went out the drive and across the road good and around the really hard corners good and only made one small mistake at a turn which they quickly corrected- however, the second team had a small problem with Randy hitting a ridge in the corner in the driveway (which is hard packed right now) and caught his runner and flipped the sled!!!!  He dragged for a little while but I was already caught up to him and the team so he waved me on and I followed them into the dog yard………..what could have been a real disaster with the wrong dogs, turned out OK with these dogs – they stopped where they were used to stopping and then proceeded to bunch up into a big dogs and lines MESS!!!!  I unhooked tug lines as fast as I could and had most of them untangled by the time Randy “showed up” – walking a bit stiff…………  None of the dogs got tangled or angry and fought so it was a big BLESSING!!

Thursday nite we go to the Tahquamenon Sled Dog Race at Carol and John Waltman’s and then train again Friday.  Saturday we will head down to our house after feeding dogs and then Sunday have Christmas with family at Spanky’s Pizza buffet!!!!  

Hope Friday goes better training – I already volunteered to go out to the driveway where he fell and try to smooth the place where his runners caught but he says he doesn’t want to walk right now………………….

The week in "review"!

What a whirlwind week it was with Ocean here!  We trained only 2 days of the time he was here but that was different for me because I stayed home while the 2 of them were out on the trail!!!  So I was even more of “just the dog handler”…………  He had 2 pretty exciting training runs because the snowmachine quit on the trail and the dogs and the men had to pull it most of 10 miles home!!!!  After I realized they were over ½ hour later than they should have been I took the other snowmachine out looking for them and found Ocean waiting for someone to come out and get him in the middle of nowhere!!!

The most dogs he ran was 3 because we ran out of time and snow…..  Friday nite Jesse, Cindy and the rest of the kids drove up to stay at Deer Park Lodge for 2 nites.  We took them out to dinner Friday nite to the Wolf Inn and ate with Carol and John Waltman and Jan Shaw and her son-in-law -  they were very pleased to meet our family!

Saturday morning we went down to their cabin for a big breakfast and then were on the road to Taquamenon Falls –about 45 minute drive north and east of here.  That was very fun – only Jess had seen them before so they were all pretty amazed at how big they were and how close you can get!! After that we went to the Lake Superior beach across from Muskellonge State Park and went rock hunting – we were all looking for agates, and found some that remotely looked like they might have been……..but not really!  By then it was time for dinner so we came back here to our “very crowded with 10 people in it house” and made chili and the kids all got to go around the 4 mile training trail pulled on the sled by the snowmachine.  Then we got Greg (last year’s lead dog) out and he pulled 5 kids down the driveway!!!!!  He was a little whipped by the 5^thkid!!!  But they all had a blast!!  After chili, Oak made a bonfire and we roasted marshmallows and had s’mores and made “footprint drawings” in the snow.  The 3 big kids stayed here over nite and we ended the day by playing the “DeKuiper version” of charades!

Sunday morning we all went to 9 am Mass in Newberry and then out to breakfast – it had snowed about 8 inches overnight and it was beautiful so the roads we not great going into town!!! It looked like a fairyland-   when we got home after saying goodbye to family, we noticed the lights kept flickering…………yup; the snow must have caused some lines to be down so we all of a sudden had no power!!!  It only lasted about 3 hours but we scurried around before it got dark to make sure we were ready for the “long haul” if need be - We are heating the “cabin” with only an electric infrared heater; the only other heat source we would have is a propane heater on the wall but it would be working without the fan!  So, a blessing to have the power come back on!!

Today was sleeping in and then trained two teams – on the second round the snowmachine quit again about the same area it had before…………strange………but  by blowing into the gasline Randy was able to get it started again.  I guess he doesn’t really know what is the problem with it!!  He’s replaced the gas, the line and the filter but it is still happening!  Just lucky I didn’t have to walk 10 miles back to home!!!

 the 1930's movie theatre in Newberry - restored in the last few years

 original paintings in the theatre

 Ocean's 3 dog team

DeKuiper's at Tahquamenon Falls

 Lake Superior ice sculpture

 the biggest snow so far this year!!!

3 dogs for Ocean today!!!

If he stayed long enough and added a dog each time he runs he could get up to the same number as Grandpa!!!!!!

we are having so much fun with Ocean!!!!

He has been her since Saturday and we have so far had him on the sled behind
 the snowmachine and today he ran 2 dogs around the 4 mile trail
 and did perfect
 less snow than we had so that makes things difficult but tomorrow we should be able to run everybody the long distance

keep thinking snow for us !!!!

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!

We did!!!  The week went by soooooo fast - trained Sunday, Tuesday and then Thanksgiving - and it was so cold - 3 degrees!!!!!  Fortunately it warmed up to a balmy 20 degrees by the time we were finished training!!!

After training we went to the neighbors to have dinner with 11 other neighbors !!  lots of very good food and leftovers to bring home!!!

Today/Friday we are waiting in a vet's office in Manistique for our 2 dogs with bad teeth to be done= apparently their genetic "bad mouths" necessitated some tooth removals...........and not cheap!!!!   Things are a bit cheaper downstate......must be supply and demand!!!

Tomorrow we meet Cindy and the kids in Gaylord to pick up Ocean to have for the week- he specially asked if he could come and stay with us to train dogs and Cindy is generous enough to meet us about 1/2 way!!!  Should be a fun week!!!  Will try to keep up with the info on line!!!

Great last 5 days!!!

Went downstate and stayed 2 notes and got to see some family for meals, dropped off the 4 puppies to Dee and picked up the plow truck and put it on the U haul trailer (with much time and difficulty.............).  Left again on Friday morning and got home in the UP without problems.

Went to church on Saturday nite and then had another date nite and went out for pizza and to the movie "the grinch"!  it was quite good - different from the other 2 but quite good!

Sunday trained everybody and they sure were happy to go on the trail again!!!

Randy is fixing the transmission fluid line on the plow truck and by the sounds I hear in the yard it must be fixed - he had done some plowing with it already and it hopefully will be worth it that we drove downstate to bring it up here.  He is wanting to move the trailer across the street to a "parking lot" before much more snow comes and we get stuck in the drive again so I am making sure I have everything out of it that I will want until we leave in January!!!!  We still can drive the truck or snow machine over to get things but it won't be as convenient!!

Talk to you soon!!!

Welcome to our winter wonderland!!!!!

Well we have actually gotten the 8 inches of snow they predicted – not all at once- but over a period of 5 days!!! It’s winter up here in the UP!!!!  Even more wintery here at Deer Park than at Newberry!  Precisely why we are here away from home and loved ones training at a place with cooler temps and early snow!!  The training trails are beautiful – Randy has been packing them the last 4 days and they are nice and hard for the dogs’ feet!  We are up to 17 miles as of today – that’s as far as we ever went up here last year and we still have 7 weeks of training here! So we are very pleased with the dogs’ progress and so far we don’t even have any injuries!!!!

To give you a brief update: Saturday was training and church (and every one of the 4 -7 month old puppies has been in lead and does excellent!!!!!!!), Sunday was training the A and B team (though they really are all 21 of them very close in ability and speed………) and then we had a delightful surprise visit from the Kukals!!!!  Mark, Jamie and Austin were up here to get a tour of Northern Michigan University where Austin thinks he wants to go next year and major in criminal justice and conservation!  So they were here just before we got back from the 2^ndteam training (we would have probably been here when they got here but Greg decided to chew through the main line which left all 11 dogs in a twisted mess with dogs bickering left and right and getting tangled in the loose lines – sooooooooo we had to unhook all 11 and put them back in their circles……..so we cold fix the line………..then re-hook them all up again.  At least a ½ hour of effort and much frustration and a little bit of ranting and raving………..) and we visited in the house, did a quick tour of the lakeshore a mile from us, and then went to lunch at the historic Pine Stump Junction (used to be that they delivered the mail to a stump there for all the loggers and they went to the stump to retrieve their mail!) restaurant (about 5 miles south of us)  The pizza was good and the company and conversation were even better!!!!!

Monday was training and dinner at Jan Shaw’s with Waltmans – clam and seafood chowder – delicious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Something I have never made especially with Randy not being particularly fond of seafood and fish!!!e

Today we trained the A and B teams again and had a little surprise just as we were coming down a short and steep hill onto the drive back into the yard……..Jan was there with 2 dogs walking back from the mailbox !!!!!!!!!!!!!  Our team ran straight through in between the 2 dogs and no fuss, no muss!!!!!  I called Jan after to be sure she was alright and she said she was very impressed with our team for staying focused and going straight through!

Tomorrow we train the teams again because we are taking the 2 opening day of deer season off = so we don’t become targets in the woods!  Instead we are traveling downstate to pick up our “chronic problem” plow truck so that we can be using it up here!  It will be a quick trip – just long enough to get the truck and take the 4 puppies over to Dee’s  house to watch for the rest of the winter – they are doing super good but 3 months is a long time to have them in dog boxes and not be able to race them cause they aren’t old enough!!!

Enjoy our winter wonderland!!!

update for the week!

Can’t remember the last time I posted (and I write in “Word” so that if I lose my writing for some reason I can retrieve it and not have to do it all over!  So that means I can’t see how far in the week I have written until I go out to the trailer and open the wifi and the blog)– I guess it was probably last Saturday-ish……….we did go to Mass and then went out for a appetizer and then to the movie “A Star is Born”.  It was pretty good – we both had seen the one with Kris Kristofferson and Barbara Striesand and this was as good or better though I like the music better in the first of the two!  I think I watched the very first version of the movie on one of my horror movie dics – it may have even been a silent movie!!!  So that was “date nite” complete with buttered popcorn!!!

Sunday we trained and then went to dinner at Jan Shaw’s and had fajitas – that’s something I never have made and it was pretty good – will have to try them!  My contribution was chocolate pudding (sugar free because all of us including the Waltman’s are on diets) and rice crispy treats all topped with Halloween candy pumpkins!

Monday was training again and then Tuesday when we would have trained puppies it was raining pretty hard so we decided to go to Marquette and pick up some dog supplements from Dr. Tim Hunt – we had tried to meet up with him as he passed by here on his way to a rabies clinic for MUSH downstate but we missed his call – soo it took just over 2 hours to get to Marquette and we got the supplements – enough to last until spring – to the tune of $800!!!!  After that shock we went sight seeing in Marquette and spent more money!  We had lunch at a place on the bay (the Iron Bay) at the recommendation of one of the techs at Dr. Tim’s – it was excellent!! I had the whitefish chowder and it was everything the waiter said it would be – we also got a history lesson with lunch because they have historical pictures posted throughout the restaurant with a matching code card that explains the story that goes with the pictures – (so because I just mentioned losing what I have written on the computer the computer cooperated with my example and froze and lost the last half of what I have written the last 15 minutes!!!!!!!! But at least because Word does auto save I only lost ½!!!!!)

After lunch we drove through downtown- a lovely mix of old and new = then we drove around the Presque Isle Park which runs along the waterfront – a very nice park to have right next to a city!!!  Marquette is well work investigating!  Funny how we have driven by on our way somewhere for 20 years and have never been in the downtown!!

Made it back to Newberry and stopped for gas.  We started to leave………….but the started said”no”…………..so we pushed the yellow truck out of the way and couldn’t really tell what the problem was – so we caught our neighbor, fellow musher and mechanic who works in Newberry, at work just before he left! He came down and wiggled some wires (looks like Randy has to clean the batter posts……..) and we were off again. Came home and fed and then met Jan Shaw and Waltman’s and Richard Robinson for dinner at Pine Stump Junction for dinner – after that we went to Waltman’s to watch the election results and celebrate and

 Early Happy Thanksgiving from the UP!!!! All UP natural turkey!!!!

 Randy looking at 3D antique pictures in the restaurant in Marquette

 the ore dock across from the restaurant

 firemen's bell in Marquette

 another ore dock on Presque Isle Island

 view from the island

 our dog training obstacle course!!!!

commiserate………….

Wednesday was training and it was quite a bit colder so the dogs went the longest yet – 13.1 miles! We are even a little ahead on the training schedule!  We really have only lost 1 day so far due to weather with the adult dogs so we are right on track!!

We had one surprise while training-----not 50 feet from where we had to go under a fallen tree on the trail last year, we had a fallen tree 2 foot in diameter that we had to go over!!!!  The 10 dog team went over 2 by 2 (Just like the Ark……..) and broke off most of the rotten branches but it was quite the feat!!!  Then when it came to the 4 wheeler it got stuck on the axles going over!!!!  So after much pulling, pushing and lifting we got it off and over!!!!

Today we awoke to a little accumulation of snow on the ground – trained the puppies and so far, 2 of the 4 so far have done excellent in lead!!!  At only 8 months old!! They are naturals!!!

Tomorrow we are supposed to have a big snow storm with accumulation of up to 8 inches – se we will see how that comes to fruition…………..

Up to Saturday

Pretty calm week – training and doing minor stuff around the house- the weather has been good for training – most mornings right around 40 degrees – as we get used to the cold it almost seems balmy!!!  We can tell the dogs are thinking it’s warm as well – don’t see it getting any colder for another week and then some snow in the forecast!

We did outfit the dogs with some new harnesses – that took a lot of trying out for each run and knowing how many and what size we wanted to buy from Bruce Magnusson – he has tried this ZeroDc brand and found them to be pretty good but now he is interested in some other variety/conformation so is selling some of them to us.  This new harness has a larger and rounder neck piece so it looks to me like the dog is pulling more like the harnesses that you put on a horse – around the neck and upper shoulders while allowing free motion of the shoulder.  We will see how they work out…………..

On Halloween we took a drive over to Rainbow Lodge – it is a re-built cabin/resort that burned down in the big fire that happened up here maybe 5 years ago??  Our friends Kathy and Richard Robinson inherited the place from Richard’s father – it is a beautiful piece of property right at the mouth of the 2 hearted river.  When we had been here twice before you could never see how close you were to Lake Superior – but now with the fire leveling all the trees there are beautiful scenic views of the lake and the river!!  They have 7 (I think) cabins , five of which are brand new and so nice – the view and the pine and the rustic furniture……..wow!  They are really trying to sell (only $950,000………..) and don’t rent out all of the units – trying to keep them nice for a buyer to look at – and pretty reasonable – like a 3 bedroom house with a view for $1200 a week….. So we happened to catch Richard there closing up the cabins and he took us on a tour of 3 of them and then we went down to the Two Hearted River campground right on Lake Superior – beautiful as I hope you can see from the pictures!

After the tour we did go into Newberry and got groceries and saw all the trick or treaters around town! They start early up here…it was only 5!

I did manage to view almost all of the scary movies I have just in time for Halloween (I probably have about 150…………) and carved the pumpkin and roasted the pumpkin seeds – so we had a great but low key, Halloween!

Nothing much coming up except church tomorrow in Newberry and training every day!  Now up to 10.6 miles with the adult teams of 10 and 11!!

 Our new "sardine can" trailer bedroom decor!

 Halloween at the DeKuiper UP residence!

 The view from the cabin at Rainbow Lodge - that is the 2 hearted river in the foreground

 Inside the  cabin

 At the 2 hearted river mouth and campground - river in foreground and Lake Superior in the distance

 bridge across the rive at the campground - made to look a bit like the Big Mac

 river and lake beyond

 me crossing the bridge

 shows you how brownish the water is up here

below: the cabins on the ridge overlooking the river and the lake

What a great weekend!!!

I didn’t do very good getting an update on the blog in a timely manner………busy, busy weekend – probably the busiest we will be until the racing season starts!

Friday nite dinner at Pine Stump Junction was nice – we got to know them much better – they live about an hour or less from Bellerive’s home – so it was probably nice for them to have someone to talk to that knows a bit about where they live – 

Saturday was a “training the pups” day and then I spent most of the rest of the time until the potluck making hot taco dip, peanut butter and chocolate covered rice crispie treats, bbq wieners and chocolate covered pretzls (only they ended up being “frosted on one side pretzls because I guess the chocolate was getting too old to stay “spreadable” when I microwaved it – what a pain individually frosting a plate full of little star shaped pretzls!!!!

The pot luck was great as usual – the thing that cracked me up was that I thought I was bringing kind of unusual things to share……………….and so did the other 5 people that brought hot dips and the other 4 people that brought rice crispy treats with chocolate on top!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Dave Turner from Fairbanks AK was the speaker and he was pretty funny describing how he trains and his experiences running mid-distance races all over the US.

Sunday was 2 team training and we passed another slug of dog teams head on – probably about 7 of them – and not small teams…..Magnussons were running 2 teams of 16 every time they went out and we have 11 – only one cluster with one of the passings out of the whole weekend which was very good!!!  We have one new leader this year that we haven’t run him in a race yet so it was good to see how he handled lots of dogs on the trailside and passing head-on! I would guess there were about 10 dog camps set up and even more people came for the day to train or potluck – so there were over 50 people at the dinner and presentation.

Sunday was adult training and then sitting around the campfire for the afternoon – luckily most of the 4 days was rain-free or only drizzle – so it all turned out very well! The chocolate pretzls didn’t go over that well so Randy and I ate them up while I watched some of my horror movies – I have maybe 20 to go and it’s almost Halloween!!!!

We did get 5 rabies shots on Saturday and the vet that comes from Manistique did them – he looked at teeth of 4 brothers we have that have chronic mouth problems (the vet says some dogs just have and mouth chemistry that enhances mouth problems and these 4 do…..) So 2 of them are going in for cleaning next month – and one of our leaders has a lump on his hip so we are going to have that biopsied also.

Today/Monday we trained pups and it was sunny for the first time in a long time – feels nice!!!!

If you are able there are lots and lots of pics and video from the weekend on face book  - if you want to get a flavor for how many dogs there were here!!!!

Friday

I was dismayed to look at the blog and see that I had not posted since Sunday!!!!!  Amazing how fast time cangofor 2 old “f…ts”!!!!  Here it is Friday ad we are in the middle of the annual training session and rabies clinic that takes place right herein  our neighborhood every year!

I guess Monday was dinner at Jan’s with Carol and John Waltman – good visit –Jan is not going to be here this y ear for the rig session and seminar that they started long ago because she is going to another seminar down in Arkansas – 

Trained through the week and it went good  =they are up to 10 miles now and we still have 2 months  to train here!  The weather has been pretty good for both dogs and drivers – about 40 dgrees.

Today we did run across the road to the trails that the Magnussons have set up for the training weekend (probably over 250 dogs on the trail)– they not only have many many dog teams for our dogs to pass but they also put up Halloween decorations on the trail for the dogs to see and get used to seeing different things on the trail! I will try to take pictures the next time we go out – it was raining lightly today so not a great photo op!

Tonight we are going out to dinner with Annie Malo and Marco Rivest – people we know from racing for over 10 years and from Quebec – though we have never spent “Quality time” with them before so this will be good to eat dinner together – more about the rest of the weekend tomorrow!!

Through Sunday, 21st

Friday was a very rainy day so it was the first time we haven’t trained every other day since we have been up here.   Instead we drove around more trails and almost got lost again but think we finally figured out how to make last year’s training trail a little longer (about 19.5 instead of 17.5).  We ended up having to run the trail backwards because we kept getting off track!!!  But now we have it marked and should be able to get around it pretty good.

So Saturday was moderately cold when we first started training and then it was on of those UP days where it gets colder as the day goes on!!  Even though it was only one more day off than they are accustomed to, the dogs were crazy to go!!!  It was all we could do to get their harnesses on in their circles (we do that now so that we hook them right into the line and are ready to go once we have all 8 of them in) and one of the leaders ate through the neck line so we had to replace that …….it’s amazing how much more energy they have with just one extra day off!!!!!!

We had one narrow escape while we were training –as we were about ½ mile out on the trail Randy saw Jan Shaw out on the trail walking her golden retriever, Katie.  He yelled heads up and her dog ran past her wanting to have a conversation with our dogs in the team so Jan did the only thing she could do………..tackled her dog!!!!  Now mind you, Jan is in her 80’s……….don’t we all wish we will be able to tackle at that age!!!!  Went to check on her after we finished the run and she was OK!!!!  Also we went farther than ever at 8 miles with no signs of any of the dogs being tired!!!

After training we went to Mass in Newberry and despite the “slower than we are used to” songs, it was a good sermon with Fr. Marty.  After that to the drugstore, then to pizza (not nearly as good as “Spank’s”) and decided to make it a “real date nite” and went to the movie theatre to see “Halloween” – the theatre was built in 1931 and has been wonderfully restored – even the Greco-Roman paintings that are displayed all over the theatre!!!!  It reminded us both of going to the show in Fremont and Montague at the little theaters there!!!!  The show was not as scary as we thought it might be (which was a good deal in Randy’s opinion……….) but good enough!!!!  Back home to our UP house at the outrageous time of midnight!!!!!!!!!!

Just finished making the "bedroom" area of the trailer to look like we will be sleeping in a sardine can!!!!  we put the shiny silver insulation all over the walls and the ceiling (including the windows.....we will see how the works out for claustrophobia..........)  Just is case it's really really cold this winter we should be very warm!!  A little snow on the ground this morning but it's mostly gone - supposed to be 50 tomorrow so we will have to get up and train early before it warms up!!

Below see photos of our "UP house" - look close and you can see the Halloween decorations above the table and on the cover of the couch!!!!

Wednesday

Awoke to more snow and high winds - we had it pretty messy and cold and hail-ey for the first team but it was even a little sunny for the second and third.   Still in the mid 30's for temp!!!!  The training went very well and everybody seems happy!!!  Including "dad"!!!!!

Tuesday color tour

Today was a “not training save the stress on my back” day!   We decided to go to Curtis and follow a color tour - which we hear advertised on the one and only radio station we can get clearly here – it’s advertised for an inn among other things – so we drove down to Newberry and then west on M28 to Curtis south of there – we did go by the Chamberlin’s Ole Forest Inn but it just looked like a big square white house on Manistique Lake so we didn’t stop.  When we did get to Curtis we did stop at a place overlooking the lake and I did have whitefish dip with chips.  Delicious!!!!

Suprisingly the colors are best right here within a  mile of us!!! There is a lot of outgrowth of maples from the clearcutting and they have turned beautiful colors – many of them you saw in the pictures I posted!

Tomorrow’s another training day and it’s supposed to snow tonite so we will see how it goes – it was so wet yesterday with snow that it seemed more like training in the rain – hopefully the snow won’t make it as wet tomorrow!

Update until 10/15

Went out to dinner in Paradise at a fish place – it was their last nite open for this year so they were out of almost everything except whitefish – which is what I wanted !!! but not so much for Randy –though that was what he ended up ordering – delicious fish!!!!!!

AMAZING!!!! The amount of work and effort that was put into the Halloween walk we went on tonite!!! It was at Paradise near the Shipwreck museum – so many people put so much into this maybe ¾ mile scarefest!!!!  I only screamed 3 or 4 times but the vignettes throughout the trail were so well done and SCARY!!!!!!!  We had to wait probably almost an hour to start but the had a chance to talk with a woman from Detroit with her 2 kids about lots of stuff.  Once we went thru the walk we went on a free carriage ride with 2 beautiful Percherons… all the while it was very cold (like 32 degrees) and snowed at several times (and snowed all the way back to our house – enough to have all the foliage on the side of the road covered with snow!)

Saturday was another perfect training day with the temp at 32 when we started with the first of 3 teams – the pups are running in harness and still doing very well.  We upped the mileage abit and ran them 5.4 miles on a slightly different trail – the old dogs that trained here last year remembered it all but about half of the dogs we have to train had not so it was exciting for them!

After training we went to Newberry to mass and listened to a very good sermon by Fr. Marty about giving everything to God- worries, hurts, feelings, being drawn to do something good for someone else, and all things that Jesus wants us to give Him.  He even used poker chips in his sermon as a demonstration of “being all in”!!  After we went on a long ride around through rough roads east of our usual return home route thinking that the colors would be nice but there wasn’t much in the way of maples on that road………….

Sunday was a “go around more trails to see if any trees are down” day and spent a lot of time out in the woods across the road from us looking to see where there might be other trails for us to use – got lost……………didn’t know where we were for ½ hour (and of course I didn’t bring the phone………..) but finally found our way back to familiar territory!!

Woke up this morning to very noisy roof sounds (the roof over our bedroom must not have very much insulation cause I hear every rain drop and today it was every hail stone!!!!) and cold temps – like 32!   It was kind of a miserable day for training – in the course of the 3 hours it rained, hailed, snowed and sunshined for about 3 minutes!!!!  WE were both covered in mud and wet and cold when we  were done today!!!  Good thing I made a roast in the Instapot last nite for dinner so we have a warm hearty dinner already made and waiting for us!!!!

Tomorrow is an off training day so who knows what Randy will think of to do- -------

 costumes from the haunted trail we went to Saturday

 first real snow fall today!!!!!

Wednesday trip to Escanaba

It took longer than the usual 2.5 hours because of the heavy rain but we made it to Greg Janders mink farm by 2:30 to pick up our specially prepared dog meat - new recipe this year following the advice of a very knowledgable musher friend of ours - he guarantees 3 more mph on the dog team using this mix!!!!  Joke, joke........  So I transferred all but 5 buckets of the 2,000 pounds of meat myself!!!

Today is a training day and it has been raining hard up until now - Randy is out draining puddles so we can get through the trails and it is supposed to snow this afternoon!!!!

Hello 2018-19!!!!!!!!!

Sorry I fibbed about being ready for writing on the blog yesterday…………..things got in the way and I didn’t quite make it~!!!

So----we begin the 2018-19 race season by moving to the UP of Michigan again this year – the snow and conditions were so good for training last year that we were very happy Jim O would allow to rent again this year – this year, however, we are not staying in our trailer for these 3 months, we are staying in the dog handler quarters that is built into the corner of a pole barn on the property.  The really big positive is that we have a shower and toilet right in the same place with us but the negative is that the wifi and phone signal don’t reach out here (which means when I want to use them I have to stand in the yard, go to the house or sit in our trailer!)  Probably won’t be watching as much Netflix this year!!

We left on Thursday and it was OK but not as cool as we would have liked it to be for the dogs traveling in the boxes.  Didn’t leave quite as early as Randy wanted but did get up here about 5 in time to unload the dogs before dark.  Lots of barking during the nite because they were in a new place and cooler and had new neighbors in the dog yard.

It is surprising to me how much more work it is to set up another whole household – lots of things to bring in to the “shack” as we are call) g it – clothes, food, dishes, coats, etc, etc  Of course I am trying to make it as “homey” as I can in another small space but not spending the same amount of money that I did on the trailer.   

Friday we trained all but the 4- 6 month old dogs that we brought with us (they are doing so well we wanted to keep them training until we go too far for them)  They were all soooooooo crazy and hard to handle!!! Especially because we are trying to leave from the middle of the dog yard which means they are getting harnessed in their circle and then tied right into the line (and we found out that the line needed to be tighter because the dogs hooked in were easily able to go visit the other dogs still in their circles)  Some of them felt like I was in a wrestling match with an octopus!!!!!

All went well after a fashion and the were a bit more settled by the time we got back.

Saturday was more unpacking and “decorating” and making lists of all the things I had forgotten or didn’t know that I was going to need.Then we went into Newberry to shop for all the things I knew I still needed – no Walmart ; only Family Dollar – but still found almost everything on the list – then to church – it was good to see the priest we enjoyed from last year.  

Sunday trained in the morning  - the dogs were a bit more used to the new exit/entrance plan (I have to run about 30 yards leaving the dog yard with them following me to get them to go the right way!!) and a little less crazy but still hard to handle – also put the puppies in with the 2 teams of 8 adults and  they did fabulous!!  We are only going about 4 miles and the temperature is good for that – plus they get a couple of breaks in the 4 miles.

Monday was a trip back down over the Mackinac Bridge to the Indian River area to pick up some dry dog food that we are going to be feed with raw meat this year =  we took the “Monster Blue Truck” and thought we were getting a wrapped pallet of bags set onto the truck – but it turned out to be loading 40, 40 pound bags with 4 of us bringing the bags to the truck and then Randy stacking them – this all happened in a downpour (and we found out the bags are water resistant but not waterproof!!)  so we tarped it and put many many tie-down straps over the stack- we were nervous all the way back to the UP (2.5 hours) thinking the load could shift and we would have bags of dog food all over the road getting wet and hardened up (or mush to begin with???)  Made it home OK, unloaded it today, then trained dogs, then Randy wanted to go for a bike ride………….do you suppose he wants the insurance money?????  Then I made pea and ham soup in the new Instapot I received from Amy and Bill for my birthday and Christmas – it turned out fabulous!!!  And now I am out to the trailer to be able to post this for you!!!!

The colors are almost peaked and it is beautiful!!! I took pictures today while training and will try to post soon if not tonight!!!

Good roads, good weather, almost to the border !!!

Had breakfast with Bellerives and then headed out at 11 am and made it all the way to almost the border at Sarnia/Port Huron!!!  Got 4 new dogs which tells me "the race is on for 2019"  More later!!

Last race day of 2018!!!

Sad...........but true!!!  will leave tomorrow morning after breakfast with Bellerives --



Today was even colder but sunny - Randy thought he had gone slower but so had everyone else - we think maybe alot of dogs used up their energy on Saturday because it was so fast.  But indeed, he did even better today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Now in 8th!!!!!

I am having trouble posting the picture I took of the results so will do it later but these are pictures of the ice hotel we went into last nite!!!